The Myopic Administration

A young Muslim boy dismantled an old digital clock, reworked it a little, and scared the crap out of folks at his school. Because he's a Muslim, this got him an invitation from the White House and a claim that the response to his device was an example of Islamophobia. (Frankly, I'm not sure Islamophobia really exists. Truth and reality are defenses.) This summarizes the problem:

This is just part of a broader general issue. The Obama Administration is willfully blind to a lot of stuff.

Even that isn't the whole story. The past six years shows the White House world view is like this:

Why President Obama has this world view is unknown. And I don't really care. My question is more like this:

If they're coming here because they want part of what we have built and the life we live, and if they're willing to assimilate, they should be welcomed. If they're here to infiltrate and/or invade and/or conquer us, they have to be stopped, rejected, and sent back. We cannot let them turn this country into the kind of place they came here to escape.

WTF*

It's in the dictionary now, so I guess I can use it.

In any case, that's pretty close to what my reaction was when I hit this story. The Obama White House is blaming the Iraqi army's failure to successfully defend Ramadi against the Islamic State (a.k.a. Son of al Qaeda, including significant leadership elements from Saddam Hussein's military and intelligence forces) on the army's lack of diversity, on Iraq's failure to integrate its armed forces.

On second thought, the claim actually makes sense. After all, the White House wouldn't want to put the blame on the current policies of President Barack Obama and on his abandonment of Ramadi (and Fallujah and Mosul and the rest of Iraq).

 

        * short for an informal phrase that starts with “what the …” and is “used especially to express or describe outraged surprise, recklessness, confusion, or bemusement.”

A Question for Barack Obama

Secret Laws

Talk about strange bedfellows!

President Barack Obama wants "fast track" trade promotion authority. That would give him greater freedom in negotiating trade agreements, limiting input by Congress to giving each an up or down vote — no discussion or amendment or conditions allowed.

The strange bedfellows? Most of President Obama's fellow Democrats are opposing the "fast track" trade promotion authority. We're told that's because they're being paid by the unions (big labor) to oppose it. Most of the Republicans are supporting it. We're told that's because they're being paid by big business to support it.

The first thing President Obama wants to get passed after he gets his "fast track" authority is his Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), one of the largest trade deals in history. That's part of the problem as politicians' positions on the "fast track" bill are apparently driven — perhaps entirely — by their positions on the TPP bill.

Yes, President Obama already has a bill drafted for the Trans-Pacific Partnership. In Obama's words, that bill is "the most progressive trade deal in history." Because of that, one would think the Democrats would support it and the Republicans would oppose it, while the opposite has turned out to be true.

Yes, President Obama has a bill drafted for the Trans-Pacific Partnership. But I can't tell you what's in it. Even if I had read it, I wouldn't be able to tell you. That's because very few people have been allowed to read it — under draconian conditions that allow no notes or other information to be taken from the basement reading room. Those who read it are not allowed to discuss the bill or even talk about it. As Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio says, "There is more access in most cases to CIA and Defense Department and Iran sanctions documents — better access to congressional staff and others — than for this trade agreement."

That's made a lot of folks wonder. Mostly they wonder "Under what authority can Obama keep his TPP trade deal secret?" This is a real case of "We have to pass the bill so you can find out what's in it." Much more so than the case of Obamacare that produced this Nancy Pelosi quotation.

That's related to what I wonder. I wonder what in the bill is so bad that Obama is afraid to let anyone know about it. If the bill wasn't that bad, Obama would be spinning his heard out to get everyone to (at least) stay quiet as it gets passed.

All those limitations, on who can read the bill and what they can say about it afterward (nothing!) are where I begin and end. If the bill is so bad that Obama cannot allow it to be revealed and discussed, then it should never be considered by either house of Congress or any committee of either house of Congress. It should be dumped in the trash bin where it clearly belongs.

Indeed, in my view, NO bill that cannot be openly reported and discussed should ever be considered by the Congress.

U.S. Citizens in Yemen

Yemen has descended into chaos since Houthi rebels backed by Iran fought and then overthrew the Yemeni government. As a result, a number of countries have been removing their citizens from the country. Among those countries are India, France, Russia, Canada, and China.

And the U.S.? This headline says it all: "U.S. Gov’t to Americans Trapped in Yemen: Call India". That is, in part, because India has gone above and beyond the call of duty, evacuating citizens of at least 26 countries (in addition to their own) from Yemen. The other part is because the U.S. government has been unwilling to evacuate the U.S. citizens remaining in Yemen. The Obama Administration has tried to explain its decision this way:

Marie Harf, a spokesperson for the State Department, said last week, “Doing something like sending in military assets, even for an evacuation, could put U.S. citizen lives at greater risk.” The State Department’s website currently states that, “There are no plans for a U.S. government-coordinated evacuation of U.S. citizens at this time.”

Further down, the same article states

The U.S. Embassy in Yemen was evacuated in February, with American personnel flying out of the country on private jets provided by the nation of Oman. Marines guarding the embassy personnel were not permitted to bring their sidearms on board these aircraft, and were ordered to disable and abandon their weapons before leaving the country. A U.S. special operations training mission assisting the Yemeni government in its fight against al Qaeda withdrew from the country last month. [emphasis added]

In other words, the U.S. wasn't willing to use U.S. assets to evacuate even those citizens the U.S. government was willing to assist.

One of the sites that reported this news summarized it this way:

We only rescue deserters who commit treason. Everyone else can just lump it. India is doing a bang up job of evacuating and rescuing people. Other countries, when they pulled out, evacuated their people with them. Us? Not so much.

As the Washington Free Beacon article says in its sub-headline
"U.S. abandons its own".

Supreme Self-Centeredness

President Barack Obama has gone to the Summit of the Americas, being held now in Panama City, Panama. There he has had conversations with the leaders of various Western Hemisphere nations, including (reportedly) a private meeting with Cuban dictator Raul Castro. Some of that meeting looks like this.

There's another story coming out of this summit, though. The headline is

Obama On Cuba: History Before I Was Born Isn’t Interesting Or Relevant…

citing a story in The Hill. Both stories quote Obama as saying

I’m not interested in having battles that frankly started before I was born.

This fits in with his statement last year calling his own actions "American leadership at its best."

It's because of self-revelatory statements like this that another writer called Obama

A rarely seen merging of supreme arrogance and ignorance (see shovel-ready-jobs, Obamacare, US economic malaise, massive US debt, illegals rushing across our borders and sinking our economy and government infrastructure, etc).

That ignorance apparently includes the events in Cuba leading up to the Castro dictatorship. (It's amazing to realize that Cuba under Fulgencio Batista was significantly freer than under the Castro Brothers!)

My own thought is that Obama's statements and behavior demonstrate a supreme self-centeredness. That also goes with him having an exceptionally thin skin for any criticism — in fact, for any statements that are not laudatory. An overall assessment?

Obama has delusions of adequacy, an adequacy he sees as supreme excellence.

Obama Caves to the Mullahs

Is President Barack Obama obsessed with getting a nuclear agreement with Iran, no matter what the cost? Or is he an Iranian agent? Is he chasing what he thinks will be his legacy, or is he working to help Iran get nuclear weapons? Look at the way the P5+1 talks with Iran have gone; it pretty much has to be one or the other. It's just like the Ramirez cartoon.

Look at what's happened just this week. The news headline screamed "U.S. Caves to Key Iranian Demands as Nuke Deal Comes Together". With this, Iran wouldn't even have to disclose the nuclear research it's already been doing. And it would be able to continue its nuclear weapons research. It looks like the situation is, at best, just like the cartoon. Intransigence pays. Otherwise, either the "negotiations" are a sham — a Kabuki theater — or Obama simply doesn't care if Iran gets nuclear weapons. But he probably realizes he needs to seem to care.

But then it gets worse: An Iranian reporter, Amir Hossein Motaghi, a close media aide to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, resigned and defected while reporting on the nuclear talks. In a televised interview, he said he no longer saw any sense in being a "reporter" any longer as he could only write what he was told. He also said “The US negotiating team are mainly there to speak on Iran’s behalf with other members of the 5+1 countries and convince them of a deal.” Is that because Obama wants an agreement, no matter what? Or is it as Motaghi makes it sound, that Obama and those acting for him are agents of Iran?

And so we see France taking the toughest line at the Iran nuclear talks. French diplomats are emphasizing the need for reliable verification before sanctions are lifted, and the need to insure Iran's nuclear research work is actually constrained by the agreement to avoid a quick "breakout" in Iran's nuclear weapons development. They are concerned, too, over Iran's failure to be forthcoming with verification data required under existing nuclear agreements with the United Nations.

It appears France isn't the only participant in the talks objection go Obama's decision. I guess that's why it was reported that the Obama Administration was threatening US allies for disagreeing with Obama's position in the Iran nuclear talks. The Administration doesn't care what anyone else thinks. It is desperate for a deal.

It may all be for nought. Iran has come up with a new demand. Saudi Arabia must stop bombing Iran's proxies in Yemen, they say, or no deal. But US and Saudi interests are aligned with each other in Yemen, so acceding to Iran's new demand requires abandoning both an ally and our own interests. Or "the U.S. could simply make more concessions to the mullahs as compensation for the dastardly action taken by the Saudis to support an American-backed government in a terrorist-infected state." Either way, it's not a pretty picture.

Perhaps President Obama shouldn't be so single-mindedly focused — so obsessed — with getting this agreement.

Last Thoughts for 2014

. . . from Thomas Sowell. He has a real knack for encapsulating complex circumstances and making them eminently understandable. As, for example, his comment on a recent statement from the former Secretary of State:

Hillary Clinton's idea that we have to see the world from our adversaries' point of view — and even "empathize" with it — is not new. Back in 1938, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain said, "I have realized vividly how Herr Hitler feels." Ronald Reagan, however, made sure our adversaries understood how we felt. Reagan's approach turned out a lot better than Chamberlain's.

And that should be no surprise to anyone — except, maybe, for those on the "squishy Left". Sowell also makes a broader point:

There are few modest talents so richly rewarded — especially in politics and the media — as the ability to portray parasites as victims, and portray demands for preferential treatment as struggles for equal rights.

Sowell also comments that Republicans, as a group, are far too gentlemanly. Especially when they should be slapping down the demagogues.

Republicans complain when Democrats call them racists. But when have you ever heard a Republican counterattack? You don't win by protesting your innocence or whining about the unfairness of the charge. Yet when have you heard a Republican reply by saying, "You're a lying demagogue without a speck of evidence. Put up or shut up!"

I agree with that. Strongly. The Democrats' (mis-)leadership really needs to be called out on their continuing dishonesty in this and in so many other areas.

These are just a few of Sowell's "random thoughts" at the end of the year. There are some additional good ones at the link above. I can't wait to see what he says in 2015.

Obama Parties While World Burns

President Barack Obama parties, ...
... dancing nearly every dance ...

... while the world burns at home ...
... and abroad, in violence ...
... and flight, seeking at least temporary safety, ...
... especially in areas occupied by ISIS.
A little girl beheaded in Syria, executed by militants because she was of a Christian family. Allegedly, Christian children in Mosul are being systematically beheaded and their little heads placed on poles in a park as a warning to others who love their children.
Islamists killing a woman by slitting her throat and capturing her blood in a bowl, holding her firm as her life literally drains from her neck. Such forms of execution are intended to intimidate others.

Events there are so bad that Pope Francis and the Chaldean Christian Patriarch have called for an armed response in the Middle East. But it's not bad enough for President Obama to interrupt his vacation, and only barely to interrupt his golf game.